The beginning of the review of Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity
As anyone who has read Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked” or seen the subsequent Broadway show can attest, the Wicked Witch of the West was framed. Elphaba, as Maguire calls her, wasn’t really wicked at all. She was a good girl set up by the powers that be (in this case, the Wizard) for, among other things, the green color of her skin. So it goes with the recently unveiled Gospel of Judas, which posits a theory as impertinent as Maguire’s about the wickedest character in Christendom.